Tea response!

Yea! I got a response/translation/information about the Tea that Brian brought back from China for me! Isn't the web wonderful? The info was left in the comments section, but I'm re posting it here so all can benefit from the wisdom. Can't wait to try the monkey-picked tea (bright green box)!

1.Pu-Er:
Originally from Yun-nan province. Taste is mild(but could be weird to some people). Tea made from it is so dark that you recognize it immediately(and got a good coloring effect). Strongly recommended after each greasy meal. It washes out the fat/calorie you eat, yet won't cause uncomfortable feeling even if you drink a lot on a regular basis. Its function is common knowledge in Canton area where I'm from; It's not my favorite though.

2. Tie-Guan-Yin:
Most-popular pick in Canton morning-tea and other tea sessions. Nice after-taste. Smells really good...Also wash out fat. But don't over do it.

3. Like you said, jasmine tea. It's tea that absorbed jasmine aroma during the making. I think it's weird taste...just not what pure tea is like to me.

4. Long-Jing:
Quite popular in other provinces, but definitely not in Canton. I don't drink it much, so I'm not allowed to make a comment on it. Quite light compared to 2nd.

5. Dong-Ding-Wu-Long:
Expensive stuff if this is the genuine stuff. The name comes from the legend that: this tea only grows in mountains that only monkeys can climb on and pick, thus making it real...special. Originated from Taiwan I think. I don't remember what that taste like, let me know after you've tried it?

Neglected no more

There are certain authors that have somehow passed under my radar and have a large number of acclaimed books that I've never read. Julian Barnes was one of those authors, but I'm happy to say, he is neglected no more! I just finished reading his Arthur & George and loved it.

At first I thought I wouldn't be moved by a story about the intersection of a cautious nobody (a half-Indian, half -Scottish solicitor) who is accused of a heinous crime he clearly did not commit and a flagrant celebrity (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) who comes to his rescue, but I was wrong. For the first 220 pages their two stories don't connect at all. The reader is going back and forth between a persecuted, dull man and an exuberant romantic. But then on page 221 the first connection is made and both characters grow and expand in unanticipated ways.

The story is also true--Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did take up the case of George Edalji and did, in a way, save him from a miserable life, and also influenced the creation of a court of appeals in English law. But the story is far from an example of celebrity generosity to an overlooked man. The book twined their two stories together beautifully and the huge gap between the introvert and extrovert, the realist and the romantic, the quiet and the boisterous, the fearful and the fearless, was somehow closed.

The detective work on the facts of the crime which George is accused of committing then seeps into broader expressions of belief: George's Vicar father's belief in God, Doyles' belief in spiritualism and most of all, both characters belief in England.

The overarching themes were beautifully handled, but so too was the prose on a minute level--there are wonderful quiet displays of wit. Here is the doubting George trying hard to accept Doyle's belief in spiritualism by attending a huge group spiritualist gathering held to celebrate Doyle's passing into the next realm:

"George listens to the crowd of spirits being given feeling description. The impression is that they are all clamouring for attention, fighting to convey their messages. A facetious if logical question comes into George's mind, from where he cannot tell, unless as a reaction to all this unwonted intensity. If these are indeed the spirits of Englishmen and Englishwomen who have passed over into the next world, surely they would know how to form a proper queue? If they have been promoted to a higher state, why have they been reduced to such an importunate rabble?"

I love the fact that George would be more likely to believe in spirits if the dead English people behaved properly and waited their turn to access the medium.

I'm looking forward to reading more Barnes, particularly Flaubert's Parrot and History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters. And there are plenty more books to follow.

Branching out

Recently Deb gave me two skeins of gorgeous Artfibers Ming yarn. This is incredible stuff--50% silk and 50% extra fine merino. I decided to use the deep orange ball to make the knitty Branching Out scarf and it is turning out very nicely:
The yarn is so special it broadcasts itself where ever I go--I was in a waiting room (knitting and waiting) and a woman reached over and stroked the stuff before even asking. I totally understood. It simply asks you to touch it.

I've had trouble in the past knitting scarves because they just get so darn dull, but this repeating lace pattern is keeping it interesting enough. I haven't quite memorized the pattern, but I'm close.

I'd love to hear suggestions for a worthy pattern for the green ball.

Tart obsessions

I somewhat coyly mentioned earlier that we got a tart making lesson while in France. We managed to obtain this lesson via Ami's sister, Shelia (aka Kirk). Shelia was on vacation with us, but was also writing two articles about the region, one for an American Express Magazine (they only send it to very exclusive card holders, so being a lowly non-AmEx lass, I've never seen this one) and one for the New York Times Magazine. The latter piece (look for it in August in the special Travel edition of the magazine) was the occasion for our visit to the Menton lemon festival and through her press credentials and the contacts Shelia made at the tourism bureau, Ami, John and I got to tag along on some unique behind-the-scenes experiences.

One was a visit to a tiny little terraced lemon orchard where the low-acid Menton lemon is grown. John posted this lovely photo of the orchard we visited, over looking the old town. Here is my much crummier photo:

The bare tree in the foreground gave the Times photographer some trouble since it kept interrupting the scene. But it is a fig tree and the orchard owner told us he loves to come up here in the summer, put a chair in the shade it casts and eat its figs, so the tree is forgiven.

The other not-open-to-the-public event was getting a tart making lesson at the patisserie known for the best lemon tarts in all of Menton, La Cigale (the cicada--why name a patisserie after a bug, I don't know--anyone?). The owner and baker grows his own lemons for all his lemon creations (we also got info on making pate de fruits, lemon cake and a lemon custard cake thingy that I never caught the name of). He was a lovely man and very forgiving of my erratic conjugation skills, though perhaps more distressed by my lack of skill piping meringue.... John posted a photo here of my attempt (the baker thought I was left handed I was so lousy with the pastry bag. Nope! Just uncoordinated!)

We tasted a good number of his tarts and they were lovely though I'm not sure that I'm sold on the low-acid Menton lemon for this recipe--personally, I like a stronger acid punch in my lemon deserts. They were paler in color and creamier in texture than the tarte au citron that I remember eating (quite often, thank you very much) when I lived in Bordeaux.

Side note: I did try one combination both the baker and the orchard grower recommended for thirst--thin slices of Menton lemon sprinkled with salt. They were quite refreshing and the low-acid was great for eating the fruit raw.

Once we were back from our trip, I felt compelled to try my hand at making a good tarte au citron, albeit with our regular super market high acid lemons. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to translate the La Cigale recipe demonstrated to us from the proportions for 80 or so small tarts (which included something like 40 eggs) down to one 9 inch tart. Shelia gets to embark on that fun project and the recipe will be published in her New York Times piece so we can all give it a whirl in August. I also did not attempt to make the tart with the Italian meringue (Well, not yet. Once I get a candy thermometer and master the filling I'll take on the meringue issue.)

I did a little research and discovered that there are two distinct schools of tarte au citron making out there. The first recipe I tried was Dorrie Greenspan's lemon cream tart from her new cookbook Baking: From My Home to Yours (which is a terrific book I plan to post a separate entry on later). Her recipe sounded the most like the one we saw and tasted at La Cigale: it has a fully baked tart shell and the filling is a combination of eggs, sugar, lemon juice and zest that is cooked in a bowl over simmering water. Then the room temperature butter (a whole hell of a lot of it) is added a piece at a time to make an emulsion and create the creamy texture (Greenspan has you do this in a blender; I think the La Cigale guy did it in a mixer) . Then the cream is poured into the tart shell. This is a photo of my finished product:
And then there is the other tarte au citron school with a baked tart which starts with a partially baked tart shell, mixes up lemon juice, sugar, zest, eggs and additional yolks and some heavy cream. This concoction is then poured into the shell and baked for about 25 minutes to set. And here is its photo:
Since I made these two tarts within 3 days of each other, I managed to have some of both to do a taste test:

Lemon cream tart and baked lemon tart, side by side.

And the results? Hmmm. Well, both had their merits and neither tasted like La Cigale's version....

The lemon cream tart was almost too creamy and rich for my taste. The texture was lovely and silky (the zest is strained out) and there was enough lemon to brighten it up, but I think a recipe with less butter than Greenspan calls for might be the way to go. La Cigale's tarts were wonderful without being nauseatingly rich.

The baked lemon tart was much more sour--the zest doesn't get strained out of this one so it packs a lemon punch. But the texture was unimpressive. It was more of a looser lemon bar texture than what I expect in a tart.

I feel kind of like Goldilocks and her porridge dilemma--these two tarts were on opposite ends of the continuum and both were acceptable in some ways, but neither made me say "Ah! That's it!" or make me want to cut a second slice. One was too rich and the other not rich enough. So my quest continues. I think my next attempt will involve using the Greenspan/La Cigale emulsion method, but I'm going to tinker with the quantities. I'll report back if I come up with a recipe worth sharing!

As if peeling off those little stickers wasn't bad enough...

...now those little stickers also contain advertising. Because I always look to my tomatoes to find out when Disney's Peter Pan will be released on a 2 Disc DVD!

The great yarn give away vol. 1

We interrupt the regularly scheduled France revelry posting for this important message:

I have too damn much yarn and I'm giving a lot of it away.

The spring-ish weather last week got me cleaning and I unearthed my yarn stash in the process. I have decided that I am finally ready to part with some gorgeous yarn that I will never use.

First up:

The abandoned Norwegian sweater

What you see above is the yarn and bottom border for a sweater I intended to make for Brian before I found out that the man won't wear wool. Yes, I bought about $100 of Dale of Norway Heilo yarn to make my sweetie into a Sven-God but this was early in our relationship (we hadn't gone through a winter together yet) and I had not yet mastered his linguistic quirks. When interviewing him about a proposed sweater his only request was that it not be "picky." Now "picky" to me means a yarn that will produce fuzz balls easily so I thought this sturdy Norwegian wool would resist the urge to fuzz ball and be just the ticket. It was only a few months later that I received the translation from Wait-speak to English: "Picky" means "itchy." (I was also later to learn that the word "goosebumps" in Wait-speak is "duddlies," as in, "I can see you are cold because you have duddlies all over your arms." See how interesting life is when you are fluent in Wait-speak?) While I wouldn't define this wool as super scratchy, it isn't the yarn I'd choose for someone wary of the scratchy factor .

Once I found out he wouldn't wear the damn thing if I finished it, I stuffed the whole project into a Rubbermaid bin and hid it in the back of the closet I just cleaned out this weekend.

Here's a (lousy) picture of what the completed project should look like, except for the colors (where it is cream, I chose chocolate brown, where it is dark grey, I chose cream and there are little accent colors of green in there too).
The pattern is from the (now out of print it has been so damn long) Dale of Norway Pattern book #104. There is enough yarn to make a sweater for a biggish guy--I think this was sized in a Men's Medium since Norwegian sweater sizes are usually kind of out of whack on the large side (my mom once knit herself a Norwegian sweater that was supposed to be a Women's Medium and it would have fit a small elephant. And yes, her gauge was correct). That means there should be: 11 balls of the chocolate brown, 8 balls of the cream and 2 balls of the green.

That also means that there is plenty of yarn to make a number of the patterns in this book if you don't like the traditional one pictured above (though you may have to buy a couple of balls of an additional contrast color for some of them) including this:
or this:
or this:
Or you can just take the part I started and keep on knitting.

So anyone out there want the yarn and pattern book? I'd rather stay local since shipping it would be a hassle, but I'm happy to hear any enthusiasm for adoption of this poor abandoned yarn.

Decadence

In the department of snobby food (as opposed to the humble food), the highlight of our trip was the 3-hour long lunch at the one star restaurant Paris-Rome located next to the Italian border in Menton, France.

I've never eaten in a Michelin one star restaurant (if one star doesn't sound impressive consider that in the 2007 red guide, there were only 26 three star restaurants in all of France) and it was a very memorable meal. Unfortunately I lack a photo of one of my favorite tastes--and amuse bouche of a thin slice of smoked fish with a tiny scoop of arugula sorbet. I don't think I would have appreciated it in a portion larger than this wee taste because the intensity of the smoke, off set by the sweet bitterness of the sorbet would have been overwhelming in quantity. But as an amuse bouche? Well, my bouche was amused.

My first course was also a winner:
Profiteroles with snails in a gorgonzola cream sauce, with a scoop of roasted garlic mousse on the side and little parsley jelly cubes (or en Francais: Profiteroles d’escargot à la crème de gorgonzola , spoon d’ail doux & cube de persil). Ami also had a beautiful pureed chestnut soup which was poured over a little apple and blood sausage custard that was sitting in the bottom of the bowl. If blood sausage and snails sound vile to you, let me assure you that in this presentation they were not.

My entree was pretty, but not spectacular in the flavor department:
It contains a piece of sea bream served with roasted pears and fennel. What the black stuff on the plate is, I have no idea, but it was harmless in taste. The flavors of this dish were simply too subtle--pear, sea bream and fennel don't pack a punch even when grouped together. Instead I found myself coveting Shelia's main course:
Pièce de veau snackée, purée de datte, feuille d’aubergine & citron confit (that's veal with a date puree, thin sheets of eggplant and preserved lemon). Each flavor in her dish (which she so graciously shared) was distinct, vibrant and complementary.

For dessert I ordered the cheese plate:
There were five cheeses ranging from fresh to dry, served with a little glass of dessert wine, some fig jam and breads. That little decorative puff in the middle is stuffed with a roasted fig. John got a beautifully constructed tarte tatin--I'll have to link to his Flickr photo when he gets around to posting it (check out his Cote d'Azure Travelogue for some other gorgeous photos from the trip)--but I have to say I wasn't that envious; the cheese/wine/fig combo was so pure in flavor that I was kind of relieved to give my palate a break. Unfortunately, there was a little serving mishap and the guy doused Ami in her wine and then seemed totally flustered, like he didn't know what to do. After a little while, he recovered from his embarrassment and brought out a replacement plate and glass for her and a spare napkin to cover the wet spot on the table, but it was a weird little serving gaff.

After dessert we ordered coffees (also to counteract having drunk a champagne/various citrus juice aperitif and wine with lunch) and with it came this nice little platter of petits fours. They were a little quirky (starting from the back of the photo)--the strawberry and mocha macarons were fine, but too sweet for us (though that isn't really a criticism--that's what French macaron's taste like). Then there were the chocolaty blobs that were indistinguishable from the melted chocolate chip and corn flake cookies that I made when I was a kid. Maybe this is one of those nostalgia sweets like when swanky restaurants have a chocolate chip cookies and milk plate? And they tasted like...chocolate covered cornflakes. Then there were the mini Cannelle; I'm quite familiar with them from my year in Bordeaux since they are a specialty of the region. I'm not sure why they chose to serve them in Provence, but what the hell, they tasted good with their custardy moist interior. And last were little squares of almond cake, nice but nothing memorable.

As it was the last day of the Menton Lemon Festival, the proprietor came around at the end of the meal and served us all a digestif of local lemon liqueur (which was served in a lovely little glass that I'm hoping John remembered to photograph...). It was a bit like limoncello, but a slightly mellower and less acidic (as are the Menton lemons when compared to a regular lemon, but I'll go into those more when I do the lemon re-cap).

Oooof. Three hours for lunch takes a lot out of you! We decided that visiting one of the perched villages and taking a hike would keep us from slipping into a coma, so we headed off to Sainte Agnes, the highest coastal village in Europe, with Ami-the-fearless-driver negotiating the 12 kilometres of hairpin turns.

Unfortunately, as we ascended the clouds lowered:
And by the time we hiked to the top of the medieval castle, this was the view:
You can't tell, but Ami is standing in front of a beautiful panorama of the coast looking toward Monaco and in front of her is a view of the Alps...(to see what we were supposed to be seeing, you can visit the village web site for a photo tour).

But the pleasures of our lunch were still tangible so no one felt even a little grumpy.

Controlling the flow

In the winter, I usually retreat within myself, furnish a small, sometimes-comforting, sometimes-claustrophobic room in my head and just crack the door once in a while to check on the world outside, or occasionally to let someone in for a short visit. But for the entire week in France, I threw my doors wide open and let everyone and everything in. It was an amazing sensation of openness and lightness; the week provided more than I ever anticipated--more wonderful food, more relaxation, more excellent company, more beauty--and almost more than I am able to process.

So now that I am back here in the blog-o-sphere, my challenge is to control the flow when relating the experiences to prevent a stream of babel that is so forceful that it is incoherent. It is going to take a little self-discipline and organization of thought to keep the flood gates from bursting so as to communicate the bounty without getting washed away (apologies for all the water metaphors--a week at the sea side will do that to you).

So for this first posting about France, lets just let some photos do the work.

There were the narrow streets of Old Nice to wander down:
while savoring a dish of exquisite ice cream:

from the bottom: chocolate-orange, honey-pine nut, and orange-flower flavors

with excellent company:

Ami and John at a cafe in Antibes

Their was weird local graffiti to puzzle out:

Why is the Vulcan hand weeping?

and the chance to catch the last parade of Carnival and the following fireworks:

Jacques Chirac, the king of the melee, with a golden rugby ball (France is hosting the 2007 Rugby World Cup)

There was waking each morning to this view:
while savoring humble, yet exquisite, apricots for breakfast:

There was a lesson in lemon tart-making:
and many pastries to taste:

From center front: lemon tart with Italian meringue, raspberry gateau, and "pearls of china," a chocolate-orange cake

There were wild freesias to pick and smell:
and sun warmed rocks on which to recline:

There was lunch at a starred Michelin restaurant:
and the hike into the clouds that followed

There was a surreal Menton Lemon Festival to see with the Taj Mahal made of citrus:
and a small lemon orchard with a view of the sea:

Forgive me if I rub it in, but there was much, much, much more.

I'll be processing the experiences and attempting to relate some of the highlights in a coherent fashion here over the next few postings. But for now, I'm going to luxuriate in the fact that Michigan has turned the corner: it was 51 degrees yesterday, the sun was shining, the snow was melting, and while we are sure to have another cold spell before spring, I no longer feel the need to retreat to my little sanctuary. The doors are open again.

Not a convert

OK. I did it. I tried it. I even tried to have a decent attitude about it. But I am not a winter camping convert.

The frozen beach

We looked at interesting ice formations:

And slip-slided around a lot. It looks pretty enough, but there were 30 MPH winds whipping across the lake that (literally) lifted Fiona up and knocked her flat on her butt. At first I thought she was just slipping a lot, but no, she was actually being beat up by the wind. That's the way I like to spend my 4th birthday, what about you?

Thanks to the Outback Oven and Duncan Hines, on Saturday evening we baked Fiona's birthday cake. The oven thingy worked surprisingly well. And we all appreciated the sugar rush to keep us warm.

We gave up on going out on the ice after that first afternoon and when we ventured outdoors we stayed behind the trees to get some shelter from the wind. There were moments of levity, like when we built a snow tunnel through the drifts:

Going in

Coming out

And then there were times that the kids and I just got fed up:

I'm cold, this balaclava makes my head look like a worm, and I want to go home.

The big bummer wasn't even the cold (though it was significant and we had to get up three times a night to put more wood on the fire or else wake up--or not wake up!--frozen), it was the darkness. Northern Michigan doesn't get that much daylight in February anyway, and Saturday was the only day the sun came out. Inside the cabin it was perpetual gloom. I imagine in the summer, with the long summer days, with doors wide open and the ability to sit outside without freezing to death, the place would be pretty nice, rather than oppressive.

I did a fair share of huddling before the fire with my headlamp on trying to escape my reality. Luckily, I brought an excellent book:
I'm trying to finish the last few chapters of Half of a Yellow Sun before I head off to France tomorrow. I can't say reading about the Nigerian/Biafra post-independence civil war in the 1960's gave me great feelings of levity, but it is beautifully written from a variety of different perspectives. I found Ugwu, the houseboy to a pair of intellectuals, the most compelling character. His views are raw and unvarnished; I hesitate to call him "pure" because he has a fair amount of goodly lust towards big bottomed women, but through his observations, sometimes as common and telling as how a yam is cooked, the war is rendered in sharp outlines, not muddied by the idealized political rhetoric that his boss spews out.

I'm going to try and blitz read it tonight so I can bring cheerier reading with me to Europe; you know, happy books like this one:
Hmmm...Maybe The Brief History of the Dead isn't the most upbeat selection...

A carrot for a donkey....

My kid's mid-winter vacation starts this afternoon and while other families are heading South for a glimpse of the sun and some outside frolicking, we, being completely irrational beings, are heading North.

That's right, it isn't cold enough for us here in Ann Arbor, so we are going to a rustic cabin on Lake Huron up in Cheboygan State Park.

Is this my idea? Ahem. No. My kooky husband has decided it is high time the kids and I get a taste of winter camping, and he thinks he's being all benevolent and easy on us since we get to stay in a cabin rather than the 4 season tent. The cabin has a wood burning stove. And bunks. And an outhouse. Unfortunately the pump is turned off for the season so we'll be melting snow. And did I mention that we have to hike in a mile (with a 6 and 4 year old and all our crap) to get to this cabin? And did I mention that I've been sick and still feel pretty crappy?

Boo hoo hoo for me.

Deb has been trying to help me figure out why I am reacting so strongly against this trip since I am a gung ho camper in the spring/summer/autumn time.

I think there are two biggies with which I'm wrestling. The first one is pure and simple--an outhouse in wintertime. And the fact that I will be the one stuck taking the 4 year old girl to the outhouse when she has to go at 2 am and listen to her scream as her bare butt hits the metal seat. It just isn't fair being a girl.

The second one has to do with winter outerwear and claustrophobia. I have a little problem when it comes to clothes. Most of my friends know me as a pretty comfortable slob--t-shirts, soft jeans, floppy sweaters, and sneakers or Keens--and there are two situations in my life in which clothes become a real stumbling block for my happiness. The first isn't an issue for this trip because it involves wearing fancy/nice/formal clothes most of which leave me at the end of an evening ready to claw them off of my body. The other situation most definitely is: winter outerwear. This trip will involve every type of winter clothing all piled on: snow pants, boots, jackets, gloves, wool socks, scarves, hats, snowshoes (that 1 mile hike isn't on a groomed trail so we'll be blundering along). And even worse I'll be wrestling the two kids into their assorted winter gear.

I can tolerate this gear for an afternoon's sledding outing. I deal with it and then rip it all off as soon as I'm in the door. But the idea of spending 4 days getting into and out of all this confining crap sounds horrific. My fragile little sensory problem is going to be in full time overload.

So what is a balking donkey to do?

Focus on the carrot.

Because folks, I don't think I'd be going on this trip if there wasn't a serious carrot waiting for me the following week. A week from today, after my frozen toes expedition, I am heading off to here in the South of France where, for the next week, I will wake up to this view:

That would be Monaco off in the distance.

Here's the even better part--Brian is staying home with the kids and I am going to this blissful place with friends John and Ami, and Ami's sister Shelia.

I'm sure I'll miss Brian and the kids, but this will be the first time I've left the critters with Brian for more than a weekend alone (well, technically not alone since some adoring grandparents will be hovering about them). Brian and I had our week-long trip to Germany and France last year during which I was able to remember the pleasures of travel without kids. Don't get me wrong, I love traveling with the kids and seeing how they react to new places and situations, but sometimes a mama just needs a damn break.

And as if heading to the South of France wasn't good enough, there is another big plus: this trip is costing me very little money. Thanks to Brian flying off to China and other places he had a load of frequent flyer miles that got me my plane ticket. And the apartment we'll be staying in? Ami's lucky and generous step-mother won the week's rental in a charity lottery and gave it to her. Because we won't be spending money on plane fares and accommodation, I anticipate channeling some of the saved funds toward food. And I'll be in good company in this pursuit because both John and Ami have excellent priorities; that is to say, shortly after waking, both of them consider the important question "what are we going to eat today?" I'm sure the markets and restaurants around Nice will have lots of wonderful answers for us.